Saturday, May 24, 2008

The beauty of silence

We live in the world that is full of noise and activity; at least we do in the west, and especially here in America.

Henri Nouman is his book "The way of the heart" talks about solitude and silence. He says we need to be silent before we can have anything to say(or something like that, it's not a direct quote). And I think he's right.

In a world of constant words how many of us have words that speak life into another person? We are so quick to speak that the fire the Lord puts within becomes a smoldering wick because we feel this unusual pressure to speak of things before their time, unlike Mary, the mother of Jesus, who pondered in her heart, we are quick to ponder out loud.

Perhaps one of the problems we face is not that we don't have the words or the communication skills but that the Word is not burning on the inside, we don't give it a chance. If I live as the Word says "slow to speak, quick to listen" I wonder if I will have something to say one day that pierces hearts.

That's when silence becomes our friend, to quieten not only the external noise but to quieten our souls within us, sometimes the loudest voices are the ones that go on in our heads and that is the joy of silence we become aware of the voices we are listening to that eventually we will be tuned to the one Voice.

His sheep do know his voice, I just wonder if we struggle hearing it because of the noise we surround ourselves with drowns it out.

That's my thought for the day, rather abstract and mystical for me, but a thought none the less

Monday, May 19, 2008

There is a time for everything

Which means it's time for me to write a blog, I think it's pretty obvious that I'm not a very faithful blogger, I guess I need to get into the habit of it.

Anyway, the middle of May and finally the sun is coming out to play, if only it would stay in the 70's! But I'm thankful that it's warming up, it seems to have taken a while.

Well, my Daniel class is over, but I didn't study Daniel today, I normally do that Tuesday so I don't really have much to say presently, what I did do tonight was prayer lead the 10pm and 2am worship with the Word sets. Sunday is my prayer leading day as I do both sets so I'm pretty tired by 4am. One thing I'm constantly being reminded of as I prayer lead is there is nothing more powerful than the Word of God. I mean we can say cool things, and give context or whatever but there is nothing as powerful than the Word of God hitting the heart of a person, I mean it converts the soul, it gives light into darkness, it's a sword that divides soul and spirit. And his Words are Words of life and I want them written on my heart, which is why I enjoy prayer leading because it actually causes me to go deeper into the Word.

I think that's all I have for now